What was school like?

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School for me was a strange combination of being near normal and bizarre, sometimes running in parallel with each other.

Tested as gifted in elementary school, but in middle school having near normal experiences with friends and classes but at the same time fighting being suddenly called "ret*d" by counselors because someone got the idea that gifted kids were really intellectually and cognitively disabled, except in my case it wasn't based on anything tangible like a test score or diagnosis. A lot of it seemed to be more of a social thing- a half-a**ed effort to "punish" the geeky kids for being "weird" because the reading above grade level and intellectual interests "bothered" some adults. I think at one point I was actually being threatened with being sent to an alternative school if my "behavior" didn't improve. Fortunately that sort of faded away, but it's always been a mystery to me how the more obvious problems went unnoticed- being smart but having difficulties in some areas, or the my slightly "off" behavior when I was dealing with what I now know were meltdowns- no tantrums, but going from talking a lot to being nonverbal when dealing with a sensory overload.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into things, but I personally always thought that arbitrarily declaring kids with either physical health issues or learning disabilities to be intellectually disabled was more of a social control thing and parents and other authority figures projecting their own hangups about kids being normal older kids and teens.

I've always wondered if things would have been better if we had been more aware of learning disabilities and things like Asperger's back then (late 70s to the end of the 80s when I was in elementary, middle, and high school). As much as I've always been leery of "help", it might have been a good thing if I had gotten the help I needed without the restrictions on the things I was good at or enjoyed.

Elementary school was pretty uneventful. I had extreme difficulties in math. I had 1 friend which was all i neeeded but i remember crying a lot because no one wanted to play with me except for my best friends. I refused to read regular chapter books because my reading comprehension was so bad. I had obsessions with Frogs. Got picked on for being First Nations and got called "dirty indian" and "savage" but wasnt too bad. I remember playing gameboy and being lost in my thoughts for most of Elelmentary schools.

Middle school was hell. Just flat hell. Although i found a new group of friends (because i moved schools) my anxiety sky rocketed. I developed an obsession with sonic. Meltdowns became constant. Bullying increased but it was mostly about the fact that my behaviour was innapropitate.

High school is cut in half: grade 9-10 and then 11-12.

9-10 was hell x10. My friends that i loved distanced themselfs from me, my behaviour was more innapropriate and teachers had to interfere (i grabbed boys crotches without consent and brought weapons to school and had outbursts at a lot of people.) i skipped classes constantly, i was abusing my anti-psychotics, was arrested for attempting to stab my sister, still obsessed with sonic. Dropped out of school because my behaviour was so bad

11-12:went back to school no friends, kept to myself, tried to focous on school work but still frequently had meltdowns. All went to hell when i read Perks Of Being a Wallflower and burnt out and never went back since.

I had a great time in elementary school. I almost didn't learn at all at home, so there was a lot of free time for me. I got good grades anyway. Thanks to my father who played a lot of tennis with me, I also was good at sports and this is all you have to be, if you want to be accepted by friends and classmates at this age.
Things fell apart when I came to the "Gymnasium". In Germany the Gymnasium is some sort of a high school from 4th till 12th grade for the more intelligent students (the others go to the Realschule or Hauptschule). I suddenly had to learn for school, which I had no idea how to do. My grades dropped. My parents were very busy (also no Tennis anymore) so I was basically out there on my own. Those were terrible years. Things went a little better when a school band was searching for a guitar player when I was 16 (I played just a little for myself until then). I was still considered weird, but for a guitar player in a rock band this was at least acceptable.